Well, if I didn’t know much about the regular way, I reckoned I could
make considerable trouble in town by blundering along with a little way
of my own. So I tiptoed down-stairs.
Apparently Royal City had quit the job and gone to sleep. The hotel
office was dark, and when I stepped forth into the night there was no
glimmer of light anywhere. Even the lanterns that served as the city’s
municipal lighting-plant in the streets had burned out or had been blown
out. It was a case of grope, but I had looked about carefully when I
went shopping and had a pretty good memory for locations.
There was a little pile of laths at the corner of the hotel. I had
noticed them when I had lurked in the shadows with Judge Kingsley.
I picked up a lath and wrote on its side, well up toward one end,
“Relocated. Dragg.” Then I pushed the lath down into the mud at the
corner of the hotel and tied to it the end of the ball of twine. With
several laths under my arm I proceeded a few paces, unwinding the twine,
and pushed another lath down and knotted my string about its end. Thus
I circumnavigated the hotel, sticking down marked laths, knotting about
them the twine. In this fashion I calculated I had declared on one Dragg
a re-location of the hotel site--or rather made it seem that Dragg had
tried on a clumsy trick to jump a land claim.
With footsteps muffled by the mud of Royal City, moving unseen in the
night, I was truly a generous cuss. I located nothing for myself. I
took the “Imperial Emporium” for Pratt, and re-located the site of the
“Imperial Hotel” for Dawlin. Then I stole back into the tavern, taking
off my muddy shoes at the door.
That slatted bed and the snores pealing everywhere kept me awake nearly
all night, and next morning I was down before anybody else was stirring.
In the gray dawn out slouched from an inner room the landlord, yawning,
growling, blinking--beginning his day’s duties in a distinctly grouchy
frame of mind.
“What time does the stage-coach leave for Breed City?” I asked.
“Nobody but a fool would take a stage for Breed this time of year--but a
man who comes out here in March and mud-time, wearing a plug-hat, must
be a fool. So you’ll leave at ha’f pas’ six,” was the landlord’s genial
response.
“And what time is breakfast?”
“Time for you to get the stage. What do you want to ask such a cussed
fool question as that for? What do you think I’m getting up to do at
this hour in the morning?” Well, I wasn’t in any jolly mood myself. “I
didn’t know but you might be up to sing a hymn to the morning star.”
“Say, you’re looking for trouble, ain’t you?” bawled the landlord. He
came from behind the counter. “I’ll cave that plug--”
That made me good and mad! “No, I’m looking for cartridges to fit my
guns,” I stated, pulling both weapons. “I’ve got only twelve left--six
in each chamber.”
My friend checked himself so suddenly that he nearly tumbled on his
nose.
“Does the store open early?”
“Yes, sir,” said the landlord, quite respectfully.
“Then I’ll take a stroll up that way. Make my bacon thick and be
very careful not to fry the juice out of it.” There’s nothing like
establishing a bit of a reputation in a strange town, especially if a
fellow has planted seeds of trouble; I could see those laths through the
window! I had begun to feel rather devilish. .
“Yes, sir,” said the landlord. “We aim to please.”
I glanced at my work of the evening before as I sauntered along the
plank walk. The new laths and the white twine showed up well against the
black adobe mud.
Sounds of housekeeping, clatter of dishes and of stove-covers indicated
that the proprietor of the “Emporium” dwelt over the store. I rattled
the door, and at last the man appeared and unlocked it from within. He
was surly and slatted the box of cartridges across the counter.
“Is it because you don’t care for early customers that you have built a
fence of laths and string about your place?” I inquired.
“There ain’t no such thing there.” But he hurried to the door. He gazed.
He ran to the nearest lath and stooped down and read what was written
thereon and cracked his fists together and kicked the lath and stamped
it into the mud and swore loudly. “Pratt, hey? ‘Peacock’ Pratt trying
one of his gambling bluffs because titles ain’t been settled here yet,
is he? If a kettle-bellied catfish like Pratt thinks he can jump a city
lot on me he’s got trouble coming his way on the down grade with the
axle greased.”
There was much more that the infuriated merchant had to say regarding
the general standing of Pratt, but I did not linger. I strolled into the
“Imperial Hotel.”
“I knew you’d come back--they all do; but you can’t do business with
me,” the landlord informed me before I had opened my mouth. “Once
you turn your nose up at my house, then up it stays, as far as I am
concerned! Mosey back to your pig-pen!”
“Very well! But I’ll drop back here when the new proprietor takes hold.”
“What new proprietor?”
“I suppose it’s a man named Dawlin. I note that his name appears as the
man who has re-located this property.” The landlord took a jump and
a look and saw the laths and string. He ran out of doors. He was an
able-bodied man with a large voice, and he outdid his merchant neighbor
in volume of cursing. It was plain that he was well acquainted with the
mental and moral qualities of Ike Dawlin.
So I went back to my own tavern. Judge Kingsley was waiting in the
office, and the landlord was talking to the old man with considerable
affability.
“I was telling your friend here that we aim to please! I reckon the girl
can fit you out with breakfast now if you’re minded to step into the
dining-room.”
“Thank you--we’ll step in, sir. By the way, there seems to be
considerable excitement on the street, Mr. Landlord. Men named Dawlin
and Pratt, whoever they may be, have re-located business sites occupied
by the big store and the other hotel. I just noticed that the same thing
has been done to you; you’d better take a look outside.”
By the manner in which the owner of the “Pallace” pounded his way to the
street it might have been guessed that the consciences of the pioneers
of Royal City were not wholly clear as to their several rights of
property. But the manner in which they were taking the re-locations
showed that they were entirely ready to fight for what they had
squatted on.
“By the bald-headed juductionary of Walla Walla County,” howled the
“Pallace” landlord, “that tinhorn Dragg has sneaked out of my house in
the night so as to do me up, has he?”
“Do you say it’s Dragg?” bawled the landlord of the “Imperial” from
a distance. “It’s Dawlin, up here! He’s been boozing here in my house
under cover for a week, but he wasn’t so drunk, so it seems, but he
could dodge out last night and try to steal my property away from me.”
Say, I swapped one very large look with Zebulon Kingsley, who stood in
the hotel door, staring from furious landlord to furious landlord. The
old man had heard enough the night before to appreciate the value of
that information in regard to Dawlin.
“It’s that skunk of a dressed-up Pratt in my case,” shouted the owner of
the “Emporium” from farther up the street.
“I reckon I can show any man who tries to steal my property that I’m
mighty wide awake mornings if I do sleep nights when honest men ought
to be in bed,” announced the proprietor of the “Pallace.” He rushed into
his hotel, and clattered up-stairs.
“When the wheels of a scheme are running in good shape it’s best to
stay away and keep your fingers out of the gearing,” I said to Kingsley.
“We’ll go in and eat breakfast.”
While we ate, loud voices sounded through the thin walls. Men were
crowding into the hotel office. Profanity, denunciation, denial, went
on and on. The judge fingered his makeshift mustache uneasily every time
the bawling of Pratt was heard.
“Better keep your hands off that and drink your coffee from your spoon,”
I suggested. “They’ll never know you!”
When we were ready to leave the dining-room I warned the judge not to
look at Pratt. We could hear him thundering away in the office.
Dragg and Pratt were surrounded by men; the landlord of the “Pallace,”
the proprietor of the “Emporium,” and a grim man with a huge revolver
in his hand and a deputy sheriff’s badge on his breast were right in the
front row.
“You can swear, threaten, and deny till your tongues drop off--it don’t
go for a minute with us,” declared the landlord, “for we all know your
style and your nerve. Because you have got away with a lot of hold-ups
in other places it doesn’t go that you can come here and do us in Royal
City.”
“Do you think we’d be fools enough to go and put our names on--” began
Dragg, but he was promptly interrupted by the landlord.
“Whose names would you put on if you were trying to steal land for
yourselves? You thought we’d rather settle than fight, that’s what! But
we’re going to fight.”
It was my turn--and my chance.
“Excuse me, gentlemen. I’m a stranger to you all--merely a passing
tourist. But I feel it’s my duty to state that I heard two men
discussing a matter of re-locating land last evening. They were in the
next room to mine in this hotel. I recognize their voices. Those are the
men.” I pointed to Dragg and Pratt.
The deputy poked the muzzle of his gun into Dragg’s face to make him
stop swearing. “Shut up! Everybody can see that this is a real gent, and
if he’s got evidence we want to hear it.”
“The evidence isn’t much,” I said, meekly, “but I distinctly heard
them say that they could clean up a nice pile of money by a re-location
scheme. It was to be bluff to a large extent. If that information is
worth anything you’re welcome to it. I would hate to see the prosperity
of a hustling city like this held up for one moment by men trying to
bunco honest citizens.”
“You listen to me,” roared Dragg. “That hellhound there is lying like
a--”
The sheriff slapped him across the mouth. “There’s no real gent gets
insulted by you in Royal City while I’m boss of law and order here.”
Outdoors was a noise of clanking of whiffletrees and the “ruckling” of
wheels. A stage-coach, mud-daubed from tongue to roof-rail, was pulling
out of an opposite stable-yard.
“I’ve got to take that stage,” raved Dragg. “The whole of Royal City
can’t stop me. I’ve been monkey-doodled by a shark. He’s trying to
get there ahead of me. It wouldn’t work here. I’m no fool. I knew it
wouldn’t work.” He yelled so loudly and talked so rapidly that they
listened to him. “My scheme was for Breed--and it was a cinch! He’s
stealing it from me--that doggone, lying plug-hatter found out that I
was going to re-locate claims in--”
“Seem to be convicting yourself out of your own mouth!” broke in a
citizen.
“I’m going to Breed by this stage. I’ve got to go!” gasped Dragg,
twisting his throat from the sheriff’s clutch.
“You’re going into the calaboose right now--and Pratt is going there,
too, and Dawlin is going as soon as they get his clothes on him,”
declared the officer. “Grab a-holt, boys, and help me get on the
wristers.”
“You men will stay here--and Dawlin, too, till we find out what you mean
by this trick,” said my landlord. “You don’t get out of here to run away
and file your location claims!”
“Send a man to the county-seat,” raged Pratt. “Look at the records. That
will prove that we haven’t tried anything on here.”
“We don’t need any advice from you chaps as to what we shall do--whether
it’s holding you for a show-down or shooting you out of this place when
we have your numbers.”
I looked at Mr. Pratt. That remark started my think-works into action. I
had my men anchored, to be sure, but that wasn’t getting me anything
in the money line--and without doubt Royal City would cool down pretty
quickly and send the men kiting. When they scooted they would go by
rail, of course. That meant difficulties, the thought of which had
already discouraged me. I needed to keep those chaps in the open--and
the wilder the open the better! In the brush, where it was man to man,
instead of in the city where law was safe and sane--and almighty slow! I
needed to be quick and crazy!
Mr. Pratt was beginning to get his wits back. He was bellowing so
wildly when I accused him and Dragg that he did not seem to sense the
situation. He turned to me.
“Damn your lying tongue! What do you mean by putting up this job on me?”
“I have simply stated what I overheard!”
“Heard me say that I was going to jump claims? Why, I told Dragg I
wouldn’t--”
“You told Dragg that you and your partner came down here on purpose to
jump claims!”
He was so mad he was nigh black in the face. “Do I know you? Have I ever
done dirt to you?”
I shook my head and looked him over with contempt. From the time I had
left Levant I had been at a loss to decide what front I would put on
when I met up with those men who had robbed the judge. I had thought all
along that my best plan would be to build on my acquaintance with Jeff
Dawlin and use his tips which were to put me next to the parties I was
after. Then I might be able to come up on their blind side--if they had
one--and--
Well, right there I had stopped. What could I do? Then I had been hooked
by that infernal Dragg! In that mess with him I had allowed chance to
swing me and our fortunes. After that squabble with Dragg I could not
hope to make much of a hit with his associates, eh? Therefore, I was
jumping for the other extreme and I proposed to make Mr. Pratt and his
friends just as ugly as insults and injury could serve. I felt like a
boy thumbing his nose at angry wildcats. And in my desperation I hoped
that the wildcats would come chasing me. Chasing me where? Why not to
Breed, wherever that might be?
I certainly was sure of Mr. Dragg, according to his threats and his
promises. And if I could stick a few more darts into the broad flanks
of Mr. Pratt and leave them stinging it was full likely that Mr. Dragg’s
appeals to that gentleman would have much more effect than they did the
night before.
A couple of citizens came dragging in another prisoner, a red-eyed and
ferociously angry person, and I knew by Judge Kingsley’s expression that
the round-up was complete.
“Who says I did it? Who says I--”
“I say so!” I told him. “You held me up and you asked me to buy twine
and pencil for you.”
“That’s right,” stated the merchant. “The gent is right.”
“Of course it looked all square to me,” I said. “I never heard how
claim-jumpers worked!” I told them. “I saw he had been drinking and I
thought the string-and-pencil notion was only his bee buzzing!”
It was reckless lying, but that crowd was too much excited to bother
with mere details.
“Why, you mutt-jawed smokestack, you, I never laid eyes on you in all my
life!” raged Dawlin.
“I reckon my memory is a little better than yours, for I wasn’t drunk,”
I reminded him.
The sheriff was obliged to assign two more men to the controlling of Mr.
Dawlin, who was a husky chap. He was far too much occupied to pay any
attention to the judge, who stood in a corner and goggled at me with
plain and sure conviction that I had gone stark, staring crazy.
“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars,” roared Pratt, “that--”
“You’re a cheap tinhorn. You never saw a thousand dollars.”
Mr. Pratt jumped up and down and tried to throw off the clutch of the
men who were holding him.
I felt perfectly safe in that crowd; I made up my mind to keep prodding
till I was sure that Mr. Pratt and his friends had developed enough
interest in me so that they would give up all other business till they
had settled their grudges.
I patted my breast pocket. “I always carry ten thousand dollars around
with me just to keep the draughts off my chest. I find money better than
a folded newspaper,” I told him.
I had been keeping my eye on the stage-coach for some few minutes. It
had hauled up at the post-office. The driver came out with mail-bags and
tossed them into the boot.
“Landlord, will you fetch our valises?” I asked.
“Certainly, sir!”
“I’ve got a few thousand in my own pocket,” yelled Pratt.
“So have I!” howled Dawlin.
“And we’ll spend it getting to you,” they shouted in chorus.
“It won’t cost you much to chase _me_,” I said, provokingly. “Cheap
skates of your sort wouldn’t spend much getting to a man you’re afraid
of.”
That taunt, in the ears of those bystanders, made Pratt and his cronies
wild in earnest.
“I’m only going as far as Breed,” I said. “I’ve got to stay there for
some time on business. When these good folks let you out of jail suppose
you run over and call on me!”
“You don’t dare to wait there for us!” said Dawlin.
“I’ll bet you five thousand I do dare!”
They didn’t take me up on that bet. Perhaps I seemed too certain that I
meant what I said. I intended to seem certain. I wanted the company
of those gentlemen in Breed, no matter what the risks were. And I
was mighty glad when Mr. Pratt and Mr. Dawlin had bragged about the
thousands they had in their pockets. I looked into the glittering eyes
of Pratt and I knew that even in his fury he was taking much comfort in
his belief that I was giving him a straight tip about Breed.
“You don’t dare to hang up over there till I come,” he snarled, testing
me out.
“If I am not there, I’ll hand over five hundred dollars to start a
city reading-room here,” I declared. “I call on these gentlemen to bear
witness.”
“I hope we won’t get the reading-room,” stated the landlord, standing
with the luggage, “for I want to see a few fresh galoots get theirs.”
“It’s time to test out whether respectable business men can go about
in this country without being insulted and bothered by rascals,” I
observed. “Come over to Breed after Royal City gets done with you.” And
just to clinch the thing I snapped my fingers under Pratt’s nose when I
passed him.
I just naturally knew, that moment, that Mr. Pratt had made a binding
appointment with me.
The landlord had hailed the stage, which was surging past through the
mud. I was obliged to push the judge to start him toward the door; he
seemed to be in a daze.
“But we’ve got to stay here,” he croaked in my ear. “They’ve got the
money on ’em. They brag about it. You’ll never lay eyes on them
again!”
I hurried him along the plank walk toward the coach. “Don’t fret one
mite about that part, sir. If we stay here all we can do is stand
outside the calaboose and ask ’em to push our money out through the
bars. And I’m afraid they are not feeling generous enough just now.”
“But the law will keep them--”
“No, it won’t, sir, if I’m any judge of the sporting blood out here.
Royal City will be mighty curious to find out what happens when Mr.
Pratt and his friends arrive in Breed. And they’ll come! Don’t worry!”
But the judge was a stubborn old customer! He kept holding back.
“Why not settle it with ’em here?”
“Because I have always read that when a good general has a chance to do
it, he picks his own battle-ground and throws up his earthworks
before the enemy heaves in sight. I have picked Breed, sir! As to the
earthworks, I’ll do some meditating on the way.”
Already my handy Mr. Dragg had given me the germ of a notion, though, of
course, he had not meant to make me any presents.